Leseprobe_Applied Ethnomusicology

Applied 

Ethnomusicology 

Practices, Policies and Challenges 

Edited by 

Huib Schippers, Wei-Ya Lin and Boyu Zhang

Applied Ethnomusicology 

Practices, Policies and Challenges

Applied Ethnomusicology 

Practices, Policies and Challenges 

Edited by 

Huib Schippers, Wei-Ya Lin and Boyu Zhang 

Copyeditor 

Ching-Wah Lam 

Central Conservatory of Music Press

Huib Schippers, Wei-Ya Lin and Boyu Zhang (eds.) 

Applied Ethnomusicology. Practices, Policies and Challenges 

Wien: HOLLITZER Verlag, 2024 

Cover Images 

Front cover (counterclockwise): Crush funk celebrating the opening of the community-focused 

Smithsonian Year of Music on Jan 1st, 2019. Photo: Huib Schippers; Participants of The Joint 

Symposium of the ICTM Study Groups on Applied Ethnomusicology (6th) and Music, Education 

and Social Inclusion (2nd) in Beijing, 2018. Photo permission: CCOM; Weifeng Luogu, percussion 

ensemble locally popular in Shanxi. Photo: Boyu Zhang; Back cover: Community dance in 

Middletown, Connecticut, 2006. Photo: Boyu Zhang; 5. Traditional healers with Igubu, Hobeni, 

South Africa, 2008. Photo: Bernhard Bleibinger. 

All rights reserved 

© Central Conservatory of Music Press, Beijing and Hollitzer Verlag, Wien 

Printed and bound in the EU 

ISBN 978-3-99094-214-7

Contents 

Acknowledgements 

VII 

Preface: Study Groups, Honeybees, and Dialogues in Applied Ethnomusicology 1 

Anthony Seeger 

Introduction: The Vibrant and Diverse Practices of Applied Ethnomusicology 7 

Huib Schippers 

Part One: 

General Reflections on the Field 

Applied Ethnomusicology in China and Beyond: Dialogues and Reflections 15 

Boyu Zhang 

Outreach, Inreach, Transreach? - Defining Types of Musical Community 

Engagement 30 

Bernhard Bleibinger 

Let’s Not Forget the Larger Context: Short-term Applied Projects and 

Long-term Sustainability 47 


Part Two: 

Applied Ethnomusicology and Intangible Cultural Heritage 

Ways of Engaging with Traditional Music Performances by Chinese 

Ethnomusicologists: A Personal Perspective 63 

Xiao Mei & Yukun Wei

Uyas Kmeki of the Seediq: A Case Study on the Efforts toward Cultural 

Sustainability in Taiwan 76 

Yuh-Fen Tseng 

Practice and Experiment: China’s National Cultural Ecosystem Conservation 

Areas as a New Approach to Intangible Cultural Heritage 94 

Gao Shu 

Incorporating Intangible Cultural Heritage in a Local Conservatory: 

The Case of Dongbei Dagu, a Narrative Art from Northeastern China 109 

Zhilian Feng 

Part Three: 

Applying Ethnomusicology in Various Settings 

Applied Ethnomusicology in Museum Exhibitions: Critical Reflections on Sound 

Narratives as a Method for Knowledge Transfer 123 

Matthias Lewy 

“Music Without Borders”: Austria as a Case Study in Conducting Intercultural Music 

Education Through Ethnomusicology 135 

Wei-Ya Lin 

Performing Cultural (Un-) Sustainability: Rationale and Impact of an 

Applied Theatre Workshop in a West-African Graduate Programme 153 

Pepetual Mforbe Chiangong & Nepomuk Riva 

Rama and the Worm: A Performance-Based Approach to 

Applied Ethnomusicology 167 

Dan Bendrups, Robert G. H. Burns, & Henry Johnson 

“Quilombo, Favela, Rua”: Sarau Divergente in the Fight against 

Black Genocide in Rio de Janeiro 177 

Grupo de Pesquisa em Etnomusicologia Dona Ivone Lara (GPEDIL) 

Note: Other than Xiao Mei and Gao Shu, all Chinese names are presented with family names 

coming last.

Acknowledgements 

This publication is the outcome of the 6 th Symposium of the ICTM Study Group 

on Applied Ethnomusicology in combination with the Second Symposium of the 

ICTM Study Group on Music Education and Social Inclusion, which took place 

in Beijing in 2018. The event brought together applied ethnomusicologists (and 

educators) from all over the world. As the current Chair of the ICTM Study Group 

on Applied Ethnomusicology, I would like to acknowledge my two predecessors, 

Svanibor Pettan and Klisala Harrison, who have both done so much for the Study 

Group and Applied Ethnomusicology at large over the past two decades. I would 

also like to express my gratitude to the Central Conservatory of Music for hosting 

the meeting, and particularly to Boyu Zhang and his team for organizing the event, 

as well as my colleagues in the Study Group, Executive, and Programme Committee 

(particularly our wonderful secretary Wei-Ya Lin). I would like to especially 

thank the three interpreters Qian Mu, Xinjie Chen and Shuo Yang, who tirelessly 

translated every session in the conference, and thus played a crucial role in the realtime, 

vivid exchange between scholars who are usually not able to exchange ideas 

through the Mandarin-English language divide. We hope that his volume brings 

to life some of the experience of how their work opened new worlds of ideas and 

practice for all participants. 

VII

Preface 

Study Groups, Honeybees, 

and Dialogues in Applied Ethnomusicology 


Scholars who attend conferences and study group meetings are a little like 

honeybees. Bees sip sweet nectar from flowers and carry pollen to other flowers 

and then return to the hive to make honey and raise more bees. Before COVID I 

attended many conferences every year. I would enjoy the company of old friends 

and newly-met colleagues, the food, and the excitement of hearing ideas I had 

never thought about before. I often attended concerts of music I had never seen 

performed. The pleasure of these encounters was the sweet nectar that drew me, 

like a bee, to the conferences. After they ended I would carry some of the new ideas 

with me to the next conference, where I would leave some ideas and pick up a few 

new ones. This is how a bee pollinates flowers, and how many scholars exchange 

ideas. Most of the participants in this study group were scholar-honeybees as well. 

Even the translators, who were also scholars, helped to refine our understanding of 

the concepts. Everyone brought original ideas and carried new ideas away to other 

places. Even if you were not at that study group meeting you can be a honeybee by 

reading this book. You bring to your reading your ideas and experiences and you 

may find things here that you will carry with you to your professional activities, 

your teaching, or the communities in which you live. 

I am writing this more than a year after COVID19 ended most in-person 

professional meetings. Recalling our conference in July 2018 brings back vivid 

and nostalgic memories of the intense social and intellectual interactions that 

ended abruptly in 2020. Online conferences may be useful for communicating 

ideas, but they are very different from meetings. Participants at study group 

meetings communicate in many different ways and can form collaborative 

academic relationship that may endure a lifetime. This was certainly true of 

the 2018 meeting in Beijing of the combined ICTM study groups “Applied 

Ethnomusicology” and “Music, Education, and Social Inclusion,” where a brilliant 

assemblage of international scholars, including many from the People’s Republic 

of China, presented and discussed the definitions of Ethnomusicology and 

how Ethnomusicology can be applied, including a variety of approaches to the

2 Preface 

safeguarding of Intangible Cultural Heritage (ICH). As so often, meals were an 

essential part of the sharing of ideas. We filed into the buffet for our lunches and 

asked our neighbors about what to put on our plates. We squeezed into booths or 

sat at tables with someone we knew and other people we had not yet met. As we ate 

we talked with each other about the papers we had heard. We smiled and waved at 

people at other tables. When a lack of a shared language made conversation difficult, 

a smile and a gesture communicated the pleasure of being at the same exciting event, 

or appreciation of the other’s presentation. Tea and coffee in abundance kept us 

awake, for the days were long and there were tours, concerts, and other events where 

we met one another in different circumstances and got to know different things 

about each other. 

This collection of essays may be less exciting than that conference. Among 

other things, you have to supply your own food and drink. And there is often 

nobody around with whom to talk about the chapter you just read. But, in 

compensation, every one of these chapters has been improved by its author’s 

participation in the study group meeting. And the written word is often easier to 

understand than spoken language because you can re-read a sentence, look up a 

word, or underline it for future reference. Later you may take the ideas and the name 

of the author to another conference, a classroom, or to your research projects and 

talk about them, refine them, and pass them along. 

Thomas Jefferson, the third President of the United States and a thoughtful 

scholar and inventor, wrote in 1813 that we can give ideas to each other without 

losing anything ourselves. Although intellectual property (IP) laws have limited the 

process he described, it certainly applies to most scholarly conferences. You will also 

see that he considered the spread of ideas to have a practical, or applied, purpose: 

“He who receives an idea from me, receives instruction himself without lessening 

mine; as he who lights his taper [candle] at mine, receives light without darkening 

mine. That ideas should freely spread from one to another all over the globe, for 

the moral and mutual instruction of man, and improvement of his condition, 

seems to have been peculiarly and benevolently designed by nature, when she 

made them, like fire, expansible over all space, without lessening their density 

at any point, and like the air in which we breathe, move, and have our physical 

being, incapable of confinement or exclusive appropriation” (Thomas Jefferson 

letter from 1813, quoted in Hyde 2010: 91). 

I prefer my metaphor of the honeybee to Jefferson’s candle. A honeybee collects 

nectar without diminishing the beauty of flowers and makes honey while spreading 

the pollen that enables them to propagate. Most Applied Ethnomusicologists are 

very busy, like bees. And, like bees, when we learn new ideas we aren’t taking 

anything away from their originators. We owe them recognition, however, and a 

place to present their own ideas, as in this book. Each chapter is like the honey from 

the nectar of many sources.

Study Groups, Honeybees, and Dialogues in Applied Ethnomusicology 3 

What is Ethnomusicology? 

This is a book about Applied Ethnomusicology across the globe. It may be useful 

to briefly look at what these words mean. The word “Ethnomusicology” is not 

universally accepted. Some people confuse it with “ethnic” musicology and others 

see in it a legacy of colonialism. It is an approach to music that considers the sounds 

of music and also their meanings and the way humans use them in their lives. The 

word Ethnomusicology is useful because so many musicologies are narrowly focused. 

Ethnomusicologists have argued about the word a lot, especially in the early years 

of the Society for Ethnomusicology. A few ethnomusicologists think that when 

musicology shares all the essential elements of Ethnomusicology, then the word 

Ethnomusicology will no longer be needed. Some people think this has occurred in 

the 21 st century; others feel the word and specific approaches of Ethnomusicology 

to music are still distinctive and necessary. For me, the word Ethnomusicology is less 

important than Ehnomusicology’s approach to music and social life. 

The first feature of Ethnomusicology is that it is an approach to all music and 

ways of conceptualizing it. Many nations and communities within nations have their 

own ways of thinking about and talking or writing about their music. These are 

shaped by their ideas about sounds, time, aesthetics, space, humans, animals, deities, 

and other denizens of the universe. For example, if a community thinks all music 

is created by gods or spirits, its musicology might not include the study of the lives 

of human composers (because there are not thought to be any). This is true of some 

Indigenous peoples in Brazil (A. Seeger 2004). Euro/American musicology, on the 

other hand, does not consider animals or spirits to be important. Instead, it includes 

extensive studies of the lives of human composers because they are thought to be 

the origin of music. In another example, if a community thinks music should sound 

like what is described in a sacred text, there may be other sounds that an outsider 

would call “music” that are not considered by that community to be music at all 

because they don’t conform to the sacred text. In short, different things may be 

called music in different places, and the musicology in different places may reflect 

those ideas. Most musicologies have focused largely on particular aspects of their 

own community’s music. But people who encounter different sounds and ways of 

making and talking about them have a choice. They can say “what doesn’t sound like 

my music isn’t music; it’s just non-musical noise,” and “what they are saying about 

music isn’t musicology, it’s ideology, mythology, or folklore.” Alternatively, they 

can change their way of thinking and accept all definitions of music and all ways of 

talking or writing about it as “musicology.” Those choosing the second options are 

often called ethnomusicologists because their musicology isn’t limited to their own 

community’s music and musicology. Instead, ethnomusicologists seek to understand 

all music and all musicologies. 

There is a second feature of the word Ethnomusicology. Most ethnomusicologists 

study not just the sounds of music, but also the meanings of those sounds to the 

people who perform and listen to them and the social processes of which their music

4 Preface 

is a part. It is a combination of the words “ethnology” and “musicology” and one 

of its central methods is extensive ethnographic research. Thus, Ethnomusicology 

is the study of both the musical aspects of life and the social aspects of musical 

performances. It includes the study of the meaning, production, and sound 

structures and histories of local “traditional” music (however defined) and also of 

transnational media-driven popular music. It includes the study of the music of 

worship, but also of advertising. It includes the music of minority and majority 

peoples of different ages, genders, and social and political groups. And just as there 

are local musicologies, different variants of Ethnomusicology have developed around 

the world, taking inspiration from both local and outside ideas about how to study 

music in its social contexts. 

What is Applied Ethnomusicology? 

The word “applied” is more or less clear to Europeans and North Americans who 

work in colleges and universities. It refers to using the tools of Ethnomusicology to 

work outside of educational institutions. The reason the word “applied” is used to 

describe only some kinds of ethnomusicological work in both North America and 

Europe is that university life and investigation are valued in themselves and do not 

need to be directly related to immediately practical objectives. For example, a debate 

on the best way to transcribe musical sounds—something that occupied the Society 

for Ethnomusicology for some years in the 1950s and 1960s—does not necessarily 

need to have an impact on life outside the university. The impact of the debate is on 

ideas about sounds and the best methods for analyzing them, which are academic 

pursuits. Applied ethnomusicologists, in contrast, want to take the implications and 

methods of scholarship and apply them to non-academic processes, which include 

ecological and social crises. Using the example above, this might include using 

the best transcription method available for creating transcriptions for dispersed 

communities to revive partially forgotten musical performances. 

This meaning of “Applied Ethnomusicology” may not be clear to scholars 

in other parts of the world. One of the sessions at the study group focused on the 

definition of Applied Ethnomusicology. Svanibor Pettan, one of the founders of 

the ICTM Study Group for Applied Ethnomusicology, stressed that the essence of 

the concept is in a scholar’s social responsibility and the decision to use scholarly 

understanding of music to help solve urgent social problems within and outside 

of educational institutions. In the US, the definition of Applied Ethnomusicology 

does not highlight social responsibility. Applied ethnomusicologists may work 

with immigrants, but they may also work for marketing companies, government 

programs, radio stations, museums, recording companies, and other businesses. 

Hui Yu and Xiao Mei observed that universities in China are supposed to serve the 

broader interests of the country, and thus all of their academic work is applied, and 

all their Ethnomusicology is applied. Ever since I was a child I have thought that 

knowledge should be used for the benefit of people, and thus I have thought that my

Study Groups, Honeybees, and Dialogues in Applied Ethnomusicology 5 

scholarship should be not only interesting to me and some of my colleagues but also 

useful in practical ways as well. Many of my colleagues share this belief. 

But Applied Ethnomusicology doesn’t only benefit the non-academic community. 

It can also benefit the academic study and instruction of Ethnomusicology. 

Applied ethnomusicologists can help their university colleagues to better understand 

aspects of music of which they are unaware and, thus, change their discipline. 

Charles Seeger (1886–1979) considered the importance of applied activities for 

musicology in a 1939 conference paper. He suggested that an important role 

for applied musicology (the word “Ethnomusicology” was not yet in common 

use) would be to improve academic musicology. He wrote: “Without an applied 

musicology the pure study [of music] must of necessity know less well where it 

stands, where it is going, where its weak links are, what motivation lies behind 

it, and what ends it serves” (C. Seeger 1939:17). In other words, music scholars 

working outside of academic contexts can contribute to the very discipline they 

trained in. Many people who are not musicologists also work with music in 

communities outside of universities. But Applied Ethnomusicologists who work 

outside universities are frequently trying to improve the field of Ethnomusicology 

itself. Some subjects are better understood through action-oriented research than 

through academic contemplation. Ethnomusicology has changed and taken on a 

more applied ethnomusicological stance during the last decade, as evidenced in 

Hemetek, Köbl, and Sağlam (editors) Ethnomusicology Matters, Influencing Social and 

Political Realities (2018) and Diamond and Castelo-Branco (editors) two-volume 

Transforming Ethnomusicology (2021), among others. 

In considering the definitions of Ethnomusicology and Applied Ethnomusicology, 

it is worth remembering that the ICTM is not called the International 

Council for Ethnomusicology. Ethnomusicology is an academic discipline of global 

scope with practical applications. The ICTM is a “scholarly organization which 

aims to further the study, practice, documentation, preservation, and dissemination 

of traditional music and dance of all countries” (ICTM 2021). Central elements of 

its mission are applied: furthering the practice and preservation of music and dance 

traditions. A particular approach or discipline through which to achieve this isn’t 

specified. People with many different kinds of training and expertise can contribute 

to this mission. They do not need to call themselves ethnomusicologists. Academic 

disciplines change their names, their subject matter, and may even cease to exist over 

time. Music and dance have been part of human activity for millennia and will likely 

be performed long after the disciplines studying them have become unrecognizable. 

In conclusion, I return to my metaphor of conferences, flowers, and honeybees. 

A flower has to bloom and produce pollen before a honeybee can sip its nectar 

and carry grains of pollen on to other flowers. Similarly, a conference has to be 

conceived, organized, and successfully managed for its participants to attend, 

participate, exchange ideas, and depart. Participants need to have hotel rooms, food, 

drink, opportunities to enjoy the local setting, and arrangements for returning

6 Preface 

home. And the academic program requires a lot of thought as well. The theme of 

the conference has to be enticing. The panels must be organized in creative ways 

that bring different people and ideas together before interested audiences. Programs, 

books of abstracts, and a list of participants help those involved remember what they 

heard after they get home and give them a way to contact presenters should they 

wish to. When a conference goes so smoothly that the participants don’t even realize 

what a huge task it is, the result is very enjoyable, exciting, and productive. The 

meeting of the ICTM Study Group for Applied Ethnomusicology in Beijing was so 

well organized that it was like a perfect flower, and the scholar-bees that attended 

had a lot to think about and to do. Everyone involved in organizing it deserve the 

gratitude of those who participated. Books like this one require determined and 

skillful editors, a lot of time, and difficult decisions. The authors of the chapters 

assembled in this book all benefitted and contributed to the study group meeting’s 

success. This collection of essays is some of the honey produced from it. Read the 

contributions, take ideas and approaches you find interesting, use them, and pass 

them on to others. 

References: 

Diamond, B., & Castelo-Branc, S. (2021). Transforming Ethnomusicology. 2 volumes. Oxford: Oxford 

University Press. 

Hemetek, U., Kölbl, M., & Sağlam, H. (Eds). (2019). Ethnomusicology Matters: Influencing Social and 

Political Realities. Vienna: Böhlau Verlag GmbH & Co. 

Hyde, L. (2010). Common as Air: Revolution, Art, and Ownership. New York: Farrar, Strauss, and Giroux. 

ICTM. (2021). ICTM Webpage, url: https://ictmusic.org/group/applied-ethnomusicology (Accessed: 

18 April 2021). 

Schippers, H., & Seeger, A. (Eds.). (2022). Music, Community, and Sustainability. New York: Oxford: 

Oxford University Press. 

Seeger, A.. (2004). Why Suyá Sing: A Musical Anthropology of an Amazonian People. Urbana: University of 

Illinois Press. (Translations in Chinese and Portuguese.) 

Seeger, C. (1939). Music as A Factor in Cultural Strategy in America. Bulletin of the American 

Musicological Society 1939 (3): 17–18. 

Anthony Seeger is an Anthropologist, Ethnomusicologist, and Professor Emeritus of the University of Califonia Los 

Angeles

Introduction 

The Vibrant and Diverse Practices of Applied Ethnomusicology 

Huib Schippers 

Many “first generation applied ethnomusicologists” recall doing things for the 

musicians and communities they work with going back many decades, such as 

organizing concerts, tours or recordings with musicians. My own adventures in this 

realm can serve as an example: In the late 1970s, I served on the board of Tritantri, 

my sitar teacher’s music school. In the early 1980s, I founded Musiques du Monde, a 

small world music record shop located on one of the canals of Amsterdam. A few 

years later, with a few fellow music critics, I launched the magazine Wereldmuziek, 

the first Dutch-language public-facing periodical on what was then the exciting new 

phenomenon of “world music” (a term which has lost some of its shine since then). 

In the 1990s, I helped develop a dozen publicly funded, community-oriented world 

music schools across the Netherlands. Later came laying the foundations and finding 

funding for the Codarts World Music & Dance Centre in Rotterdam, which opened 

in 2006, bringing together degree courses, research, community outreach, music in 

schools and events celebrating musical diversity, all under a single roof. Next was 

a series of festivals on intercultural meetings, Encounters (2005–2013), while I was 

professoring and building an innovative music research centre at Griffith University 

in Australia as my day job. And then there was the record label Smithsonian 

Folkways in Washington DC (2016–2020): helping revitalise an iconic institution 

that gives voice to underrepresented people and sounds to an annual audience of 

hundreds of millions (Schippers 2021). Many colleagues, including some of the 

contributors to this volume, have similar stories, with many variations in focus and 

scale. 

Then, in the course of the 1990s and early 2000s, we found out that the work 

that had grown organically from us seeing needs and opportunities outside the realm 

of our strictly scholarly duties suddenly came to be called “applied.” I think that 

naming was less meaningless than it may sound. Drawing specific attention to the 

work in this sphere (I’ll come back to how narrow or wide that sphere may be) has 

enabled us to create theoretical, practical, organisational, philosophical, and ethical 

frameworks which help us understand, develop and guide this type of work further, 

as it differs significantly from the “hands-off ” approach that largely dominated

8 Introduction 

the first 100 years of our discipline (for those of us who choose Adler’s 1885 essay 

as the start date). As this volume demonstrates, it provides the opportunity to 

recalibrate existing practices, carefully design new ones, and celebrate the continuing 

spontaneous outbursts of care for communities that may not even have been 

designed as “applied ethnomusicology,” but can fruitfully be described as such after 

the fact. 

In terms of existing practices, perhaps the most striking instances come from 

China, where—as some of our contributors argue convincingly—the brief of 

ethnomusicologists has always been applied in various ways. Boyu Zhang’s opening 

chapter in this volume refers back as far as Confucius, but gets very concrete from 

the Cultural Revolution. Since then, ethnomusicologists in China have been 

working for a variety of clearly defined non-academic purposes: from supporting 

composers in their creative work by providing insights into the structures of folk 

music, to playing a key role in the country’s unparalleled efforts towards greater 

cultural diversity and sustainability since the beginning of this century, always as 

“part of the construction of the Chinese nation-state,” as Xiao Mei puts it. Using a 

plenary panel at the 2018 meeting as a springboard, Boyu observes how definitions 

and approaches seem to differ greatly between SEM (US), ICTM (rest of the world) 

and China. At the same time, he finds a great deal of overlap. He proposes to bring 

these together through a different way of categorizing sound-based and contextbased 

music research, broadening the scope of what we usually consider applied 

work. 

Xiao Mei and Yukun Wei add a thoughtful historical analysis and critique of 

the role of ethnomusicologists in shaping performance formats for traditional musics 

in China, predating much work on “artistic research” in Europe and the US (e.g. 

Coessens, Douglas & Crispin 2009; Borgdorff 2012). The chapter offers one of the 

most lucid and honest accounts of the prevalent way of presenting music traditions 

in China I have come across in English. This is combined with critical reflections 

on the implications of different ways of engaging ethnomusicologists in the 

cataloguing, archiving, bringing to the stage and sustaining of the music practices of 

both Han people and Chinese minorities. 

In his preface, Seeger mentions that some academics see developing university 

curricula as applied work. Certainly, scholars who do research and use it to educate a 

next generation of ethnomusicologists (or teachers, or composers, or policy workers) 

can claim that they apply their research to a certain extent. And without any doubt, 

learning and teaching is an important area of activity for applied ethnomusicologists, 

many of whom have another foot firmly in the sister discipline of music education 

(Patricia Shehan Campbell comes to mind first, particularly her Global Music Series 

with Oxford, and her World Music Pedagogy series with Routledge). Several 

contributors to this volume focus on the role and impact of applied ethnomusicology 

on music education. Wei-Ya Lin reports on her work for Music without Borders, a 

project aiming at creating greater sensitivity to diversity among elementary and

The Vibrant and Diverse Practices of Applied Ethnomusicology 9 

middle school students in Austria, as part of a national awareness that curricula have 

largely remained hegemonically Western in content and pedagogy. But, as she notes, 

much work needs to be done to before “the European educational background and 

the relative lack of life experience of the teachers, coupled with rigid school rules and 

poor communication” makes room for truly “building a bridge for communication.” 

Zhilian Feng reflects on her efforts to integrate the Dongbei Dagu tradition into 

curriculum of a local conservatory as an “example of how ethnomusicological 

research into the nature and status of a traditional music in Northeast China can 

be applied to concrete plans to transform the curriculum of a local conservatory”: 

a practice that is seen across China and has already lifted the status of many “folk 

traditions.” Pepetual Mforbe Chiangong and Nepomuk Riva describe how 

facilitating an applied theatre workshop in a West African Graduate Programme with 

participants from across the region raises important questions about sustainability, 

juxtaposing the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals with the indigenous 

perspectives of the participants on keeping culture vital. 

Cultural sustainability probably emerges as the most prominent theme in this 

volume, largely driven by the unparalleled investment China has made into this area 

since the 2003 UNESCO Convention on the Safeguarding of Intangible Cultural 

Heritage. Tony Seeger makes the important distinction between short term and 

long-term sustainability, and laments how many of our projects focus on shortterm 

outcomes due to funding requirements and university structures. He pleads for 

a greater understanding of power structures and the need to aim for sustainability: 

“We need to continually think in the long term and do our best to ensure that our 

best thinking, our best recordings, and the idea and artistry of those with whom we 

collaborate and co-produce are all managed for a future we will not live to see and 

that we cannot imagine, but that we can hope to influence.” 

Yuh-Fen Tseng describes the challenges and successes in protecting Uyas 

Kmeki of the indigenous Seediq in Taiwan, presenting an innovative composition 

and performance project in an effort to preserve the music against the background 

of a turbulent history, from Japanese colonisation to the present frameworks to 

promote indigenous cultures in China. Gao Shu presents the concept and modus 

operandi of the National Cultural Ecosystem Protection Areas, which she describes 

as “a systematic and appropriate intervention in time and space, intergrating 

culture and environment, including entities such as natural set-up, production and 

lifestyle, economy, language, social organization, as well as ideologies and value 

concepts.” Realising the risk of stasis in such efforts, she reminds the reader that 

“the constituent elements are dynamic, balancing the present with the past, distinct 

cultures with their wider contemporary contexts, and individual cultural identities 

with interaction with a multicultural and networked world.” 

The third main theme of applied ethnomusicology that is represented here– 

and one that has featured prominently from the beginning–is contributing to 

improving the lives of the people applied ethnomusicologists work with. Using his


work in South Africa as an example, Bernhard Bleibinger makes a contribution 

to theoretical discussions by arguing for distinguishing the terms outreach, inreach 

and transreach in working with communities. He characterises the latter as “a 

specific form of outreach, in which knowledge and/or skills from one or several 

cultures are brought to a community consisting of members of another or several 

other cultures,” which he considers to be particularly effective in “increasingly 

pluri-cultural societies during a time of world-wide migration and transcultural 

encounters.” In another challenging cultural encounter, Matthias Lewy reflects 

on the absence of indigenous input in an exhibition at an ethnographic museum in 

Switzerland, which he tries to counter through the development of sound narratives 

in the exhibition halls. He argues for more collaborative curating: “offering this 

curative power to the indigenous hands is an act of genuine decolonisation, not 

only for the ethnographic museums, but also for our work as ethnomusicologists.” 

Dan Bendrups, Robert Burns and Henry Johnson describe their involvement in 

developing the music for a wayang kulit video Rama and the Worm with dalang Joko 

Susilo to make communities in Java aware of the need for hygiene. Using “nonidiomatic” 

improvisations, they create a performance that “exists as a result of interand 

transcultural collaboration, offering new sounds and cultural modalities to 

accompany a local yet global tradition.” 

The powerful final chapter describes musical gatherings to support the 

struggle against killing Black people in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, focusing on the 

music video Quilombo, Favela, Rua which they produced. Set against a harsh 

background of racism, discrimination, genocide, and misogyny, but also providing 

perspective by linking it to the spiritual world of the ancestors, they consider the 

Sarau Divergente “as a space of healing which strengthens, builds, and concretely 

makes visible the political struggle of black resistance.” The chapter is written by 

the Ethnomusicological Research Group Dona Ivone Lara, consisting of five 

activists and members of the communities, only two of whom are academically 

trained. Yet, they are all credited equally, because their contributions are valued 

so: a powerful turn from the practice of regarding those who do the musicking as 

“informants” or “subjects.” 

That leads us to some final reflections on methodology and scope. While, 

as this volume demonstrates, applied ethnomusicology covers a wide range of 

practices, many would argue that its distinctive features include a degree of agency 

on the part of the ethnomusicologist. In other words: the object of study doesn’t 

play out before the researcher, but—at least in part—because of the researcher. Pettan 

(for instance in the chapter by Boyu in this volume, and in Pettan 2008; Pettan 

& Titon 2015) emphasises the term intervention. In the meetings of the ICTM 

working group, we have tried to favour presentations which clearly demonstrate 

an applied component in their approach: the “intent to apply.” With that intent 

arise many new ethical issues, even more intense than the many considerations that 

govern ethnomusicological research at large, as they emphatically deal with our

The Vibrant and Diverse Practices of Applied Ethnomusicology 11 

roles as agents in relation to the communities we work with, and the intended and 

unintended consequences of our actions: “What are we trying to do?”, “In who’s 

interest?”, and “Who are we to intervene?” 

At the same time, it is useful to realise that much research is not necessarily 

either applied or not: it can have any number of applied aspects. This is partly 

steered by the environment in which we work: in many academic settings, pure 

research is privileged, while for non-academic organisations and many funding 

bodies, applied work is. Some research may not be designed to be applied, but turns 

out applied later. Some research may be designed to be applied, but turn out to be 

more observation-based in the end, for instance when communities choose not to 

engage with the applied intentions of the researchers. The way projects are reported 

tend to strongly reflect context and intent: there is a vast difference between a peerreviewed 

article and a report to inform funding bodies or public authorities. 

What does all of this mean in the quest to define applied ethnomusicology, 

which a number of contributors to this volume refer to, particularly in Boyu’s 

chapter? (in addition to many colleagues over the past 30 years, including Sheehy 

1992; Pettan 2015, Pettan & Titon 2015, and particularly Klisala Harrison, who has 

emerged as the leading chronicler of applied ethnomusicology: e.g. Harrison 2012, 

2016, 2017). I am always a little hesitant when the discussion goes in that direction, 

and not convinced that a satisfying and universally applicable definition can or 

even needs to be found. What is more important is that we keep discussing the 

scope, methods and aims (to invoke Adler 1885) of applied work in our discipline. 

Rather than formulating rigid boundaries between applied and non-applied (pure?) 

ethnomusicology, I think it is more useful to consider the field as a continuum, with 

projects possessing a lower or higher component of “appliedness,” starting with 

projects that are barely applied (like, for instance measuring intervals) and ending 

at projects where the societal impact may be more important than the musical 

sound itself (like in the Brazilian chapter mentioned above). The position on this 

continuum does not determine the overall merit or value of research in any way. But 

to me, applied ethnomusicology does constitute a powerful reminder of how we can 

pursue humane and sensible ways of working with people in ethnomusicological 

research, with scholarly rigour and our eye on larger societal contexts. 

In their striking diversity in content and approach, the contributions to this 

volume embody that, marrying passionate engagement with lucid perspectives. 

As Seeger notes in his preface, one of the most striking features of this volume is 

the depth of reflection—including critical self-reflection—we see amongst the 

authors. I believe it is this that will help applied ethnomusicology most: not a search 

for rigid definitions, but rather a continuing, collaborative, collegial, openminded 

search among the academic, societal, ethical, organisational, and methodological 

issues we all encounter to work most successfully with communities across the 

globe to achieve their and our goals in keeping music practices vibrant and alive for 

generations to come.


References: 

Adler, G. (1885). Umfang, Methode und Ziel der Musikwissenschaft. Vierteljahresschrift fur Musikwissenschaft 

I: 5–20. 

Borgdorff, H. (2020). The Conflict of the Faculties: Perspectives on Artistic Research and Academia. Leiden: 

Leiden University Press. 

Coessens, K, Crispin, D & Douglas, A. (2009). The Artistic Turn: A Manifesto. Ghent: Orpheus Institute. 

Harrison, K, Mackinlay, E, & Pettan, S. (Eds). (2010). Historical and Emerging Approaches to Applied 

Ethnomusicology. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing. 

Harrison, K. (2012). Epistemologies of Applied Ethnomusicology. Ethnomusicology, 56 (3): 505–529. 

—. (2016). Applied Ethnomusicology in Institutional Policy and Practice. COLLeGIUM, 21, University 

of Helsinki. 

—. (2016). Why Applied Ethnomusicology? COLLeGIUM, 21: 1–21, University of Helsinki. 

Pettan, S. (2008). Applied Ethnomusicology and Empowerment Strategies: Views from Across the 

Atlantic. Musicological Annual (special issue on applied ethnomusicology), 44(1): 85–99. 

Pettan, S. & Titon, J. T. (Eds.). (2015). The Oxford Handbook of Applied Ethnomusicology, pp. 29–51. New 

York: Oxford University Press. 

Schippers, H. (2020). The Meeting Room as Fieldwork Site: Toward an Ethnography of Power. In 

Garcia Corona, L.F. & Wien, K., (Eds.), Voices of the Field: Pathways in Public Ethnomusicology, pp. 

33–45. New York: Oxford University Press. 

Sheehy, D. (1992). A Few Notions about Philosophy and Strategy in Applied Ethnomusicology. Ethnomusicology 

(special issue on music, the public interest, and the practice of ethnomusicology), 36(3): 

3–7. 

Huib Schippers is Adjunct Professor at Griffith University and a consultant for academic and arts organizations, 

drawing on over 30 years in leadership positions.

Part One 

General Reflections on the Field

Applied Ethnomusicology in China and Beyond: 

Dialogues and Reflections 

Boyu Zhang 

Introduction 

The concept of Applied Ethnomusicology is relatively new in China. Yet at the 

same time it is ancient. The idea that music can be used for the benefit of society 

has a long history here. According to Confucius, “to change the customs of a 

society, nothing is better than music. 1 ” So when he wanted to have a general 

understanding of a community, he investigated the nature of music people listened 

to 2 . As Yu Hui mentions below, over two millennia later, in 1942, Chairman Mao 

gave a speech at Forum on Literature and Art in Yan’an (the birthplace of the Chinese 

Communist Party), where he put forward a utilitarian policy that all arts should 

serve ordinary people. In contemporary Chinese society, artistic life of the people 

is considered part of government responsibilities: not only in terms of the social 

administration structure of people who work on music—such as Culture Ministry 

at national, the Culture Bureaus at provincial and regional, and Cultural Stations 

at county level—but also regarding activities organized by other administrative 

offices to enrich people’s cultural lives. A striking example of this is Songxi Xiaxiang 

(providing Chinese opera performances to villagers). This is a project managed by 

local authorities, who sign contracts and pay opera troupes for free performances 

in local villages. The initiative aims to enrich cultural life in remote villages. From 

this perspective, the term Applied Ethnomusicology may be new, yet using music to 

improve people’s life is an old and generally accepted practice in China. 

Looking back at Chinese music research over the past five decades, its main 

purpose was to explore the horizon of music, so as to work out the specific rules 

and characteristics of Chinese traditional music, with a view of offering such data 

1. 移风易俗 , 莫善于乐。This is a wide spread idea being believed said by Confucius. The sentence is recorded 

in the ancient book Xiaojing-Guangyaodao (Filial Piety 《孝经》, Section on “Principles Expanding”), which is 

one of Thirteen Classics of Confuciunism. 

2. In ancient China, every Dynasty had its own court music system which was considered as part of political and 

social system. This information can be found in the “Music Section” of 24 Annals. For example, in the Lushi 

Chunqiu, a historical book written two thousand years ago recorded that Huangdi (Yellow Emperor) asked music 

officers to make temperament pipes in order to measure the tuning system..

16 Part One: General Reflections on the Field 

to composers to work out new compositions with a Chinese character 3 . Hence, 

ethnomusicological research was treated at the time as part of compositional 

process, and the researchers were based in the Composition Department of 

the Conservatories. Music research was therefore “applied” to composition 

in art music. It is much later—in the 1980s—that Chinese music research, or 

research of music from a cultural perspective, or ethnomusicology, came into 

existence as an independent entity in China. There are still debates among 

Chinese ethnomusicologists on the definition of Chinese music research versus 

ethnomusicology, or the study of music in a cultural context versus and that of 

pure music analysis. Since 2004, following the guidelines of the 2003 UNESCO 

Convention on the Safeguarding of Intangible Cultural Heritage, the Chinese 

Government and scholars have been emphasizing the heritage of “music traditions in 

China.” Research now encompasses many processes of dealing with “raw materials,” 

such as collecting, archiving, research, publication, restoration, preservation, 

introducing folk music to university (education), and last but not least, using 

musical expression to bolster tourism. The Intangible Cultural Heritage Office has 

become part of the official establishment at all levels of social management: County, 

Region 4 , Province, and the National. 

We can therefore conclude that in China, ethnomusicological research and 

Applied Ethnomusicology have always been intertwined to some extent. Research 

is considered useful for addressing social problems, through raising the awareness 

of cultural heritage, and enhancing the understanding of the value of the tradition. 

As opportunities for education have improved, illiteracy has almost disappeared 

in China. This has allowed folk musicians from remote areas to write about their 

own music, thereby promoting the dissemination of indigenous music to outsiders. 

Such articles are readily available on websites, such as the websites of the Intangible 

Cultural Heritage Offices of counties and provinces. While some of these may not 

have a high research value, they can still offer some basic information to the readers. 

With these ideas in mind, I felt the Joint Symposium of the ICTM Study 

Groups on Applied Ethnomusicology (6 th ) and Music, Education and Social 

Inclusion (2nd), which I convened with my team in Beijing in July 2018, was the 

ideal opportunity for a dialogue between leading Chinese and Western (Europe 

and US-based) applied ethnomusicologists on what Huib Schippers refers to (after 

Adler 1885) as the “Scope, Methods and Aims of Applied Ethnomusicology” in his 

Introduction to this volume. I was very fortunate to have Professors Xiao Mei, Hui 

Yu, Svanibor Pettan, Anthony Seeger, and Huib Schippers willing to take part in 

an onstage dialogue with me. This chapter is a primarily a report of that dialogue, 

which took place on July 9 th , 2018. 

First, after my introductory remarks on applied ethnomusicology in China 

described above, it may be useful to revisit some Western perspectives. In the US, 

3. This approach strongly resonates with what is now mostly referred to as “artistic research”, which was one of the 

themes of the 7 th Symposium of the ICTM Study Group in 2020. 

4. Region indicates several counties to form a “county cluster”, and named with a city within the area.


the Society for Ethnomusicology (SEM) was the first organization to dedicate a 

Section to Applied Ethnomusicology, in 1998. On its website, its focus is outlined as 

follows: 

The Applied Ethnomusicology Section is devoted to work in ethnomusicology 

that puts music to use in a variety of contexts, academic and otherwise, including 

education, culutral policy, conflict resolution, medicine, arts programming 

and community music. Members in applied ethnomusicology section work to 

organize panel sessions and displays at SEM conferences that showcase this kind 

of work and to discuss the issues that surround it, as well as to foster connections 

between individuals and institutions. 

(https://www.ethnomusicology.org/page/Groups_SectionsAE, accessed 10 July 2021) 

The ICTM Study Group on Applied Ethnomusicology was officially established in 

2007, and the following definition of the field can be found on the ICTM website: 

Applied Ethnomusicology is the approach guided by principles of social 

responsibility, which extends the usual academic goal of broadening and 

deepening knowledge and understanding toward solving concrete problems and 

toward working both inside and beyond typical academic contexts. 

(http://www.ictmusic.org/group/applied-ethnomusicology, accessed 10 July 2021) 

The definition on SEM website focuses mainly on the “public sector,” such 

as festival and concert organization, museum exhibitions, and apprenticeship 

programs, as well as the scholarship embraced by SEM that addresses these topics; 

whereas the definition on ICTM website refers to addressing of concrete social 

issues, and towards working both inside and beyond typical academic contexts. 

These aims and objectives are not mutually exclusive. The differences between 

these two organizations seem to be that SEM focuses on work on festivals, concert 

organization, etc., while ICTM is broader and it prioritizes the “social issues” 

and “concrete problems.” This is why Applied Ethnomusicology is defined as an 

“approach” rather than a (sub)discipline. For ethnomusicologists involved with either 

SEM or ICTM, not many have the opportunity to serve as organizers of festivals or 

concerts. When these scholars discuss issues related to such boundaries, as mentioned 

in the last sentence of SEM’s definition, what differences can be found between 

Applied Ethnomusicology and Ethnomusicology? In any society, job positions are 

usually geared toward certain categories of people. Ethnomusicologists usually work 

at universities: if they want to apply their knowledge to address certain social issues, 

or to organize festivals, or similar events, do they complete those tasks as part of 

their work or independently? Or do they offer their wisdom to those who work in 

these fields? When scholars such as the panelists in this round table discuss the issue, 

is the discussion part of applied ethnomusicology, or rather theoretical? 

These are ongoing discussions around the world. The SEM Section tends to 

have a US focus, while the first five symposiums of the Study Group on Applied 

Ethnomusicology—which took place in Europe, Africa and Asia—scholars were 

trying to get closer to a shared understanding of the elusive meaning of Applied 

Ethnomusicology; sometimes agreeing, sometimes agreeing to disagree. A number 

of important scholarly contributions have emerged from these discussions, from


Sheehy and Titon’s 1992 reflections in Ethnomusicology to the more in-depth edited 

volumes Applied Ethnomusicology—Historical and Contemporary Approaches (Klisala 

Harrison, Elizabeth Mackinlay and Svanibor Pettan, eds, 2010); The Oxford Handbook 

of Applied Ethnomusicology (Pettan and Titon 2015); and Applied Ethnomusicology in 

Institutional Policy and Practice (Harrison 2016), to name just a few. 

The Panel Discussion 

However, the focus of this chapter is not the scholarly literature, but rather the lively 

exchange on the subject by the scholars mentioned above, which on the following 

pages includes their—slightly edited—contributions to the panel discussion and 

their responses to questions from other participants of the conference in Beijing. In 

their statements, the five panelists reflect on their views, experiences and visions for 

applied ethnomusicology in the order they spoke at the event. I will present these 

insights as they were delivered during the Symposium, and reflect on some of their 

implications towards the end of this chapter. 

Svanibor Pettan: 

The definition of Applied Ethnomusicology, which probably all of you know already 

[see also above] was adopted at the ICTM World Conference held in Vienna in 

2007, and since then it was used at various ICTM-related events. Back then, I called 

for a meeting and presented some basic suggestions how to define this field, and 

our collective brainstorming resulted in the current definition. I would like to alert 

you that it is possible to compare the definitions in different institutions, such as 

SEM and ICTM. ICTM was established in 1947, while SEM a bit later in 1955. 

The Section on Applied Ethnomusicology at SEM was established in 1998, while 

at ICTM the Study Group was established in 2007. Interestingly, though, on the 

SEM website there was no definition for a long time; it only offered quotations from 

different scholars explaining what Applied Ethnomusicology involves. 

The question is: what does Applied Ethnomusicology mean for me, or for each 

of us? I always sensed compassion, as I wanted my research to help solving problems 

and to have a broader meaning. For me, the notion of Applied Ethnomusicology is 

like a dream come true. This was the reason behind the establishment of this study 

group, and I am happy to see the group steering in its current directions. I was 

also a founding member of SEM Applied Ethnomusicology Section. I attended its 

meetings, and at the beginning there was a tendency to discuss non-academic job 

opportunities for ethnomusicologists. It was about the public sector, for instance 

people working in museums rather than having university positions. In the 1990s, 

I was experiencing “war at home” and my research was focused on work. I was 

dealing with refugees and other people facing questions of life and death. I was not 

really satisfied with the scope of our discipline which, I felt, was not living up to its 

potentials. This motivated me to became involved in establishing a study group at 

ICTM. 

There are scholars who are satisfied with doing research for the purely academic 

purposes. They do not like to talk about application; some are actually unhappy


about it. Alan P. Merriam and later Bruno Nettl wanted to primarily secure the space 

for ethnomusicology as an academic discipline in US curricula. In Nettl’s historical 

overviews of the discipline, there is no mention of Applied Ethnomusicology 

from which we can see that their history of Ethnomusicology does not mention 

Applied Ethnomusicology. Why is it so? Anthropology, sociology, not to mention 

mathematics, physics, etc., are accompanied by their applied branches. There are 

even independent scholarly societies with a focus on application of their disciplinary 

legacies. The Society for Applied Anthropology, for instance, has more members 

than the primary disciplinary organizations such as Society for Ethnomusicology or 

ICTM. All of them are using the knowledge, understanding, and skills developed in 

the respective disciplines for the sake of practical improvements. 

The key word here is “intervention”, i.e. reaching beyond the broadening 

and deepening of knowledge for the sake of either change or safeguarding of the 

circumstances. In Slovenia, the predominant model of ethnomusicology in public 

perception is that of folk music research, which is very much nationally selfcentered. 

In the 21 st century, this historical search for the nation’s pure soul in old 

village songs is giving space to the inclusion of minorities and encounters with 

various other musics in general. There are potential applied extensions of research 

based on collected songs, dances, or music instruments in the field ethnographies, 

transcriptions in staff notation, and recordings. But now, I also raise the awareness 

about Applied Ethnomusicology through the course at the University of Ljubljana. I 

think this is one of our great achievements. 

In Austria, which is the neighboring country of Slovenia, there are clear traces 

of both historical traditions of ethnomusicology: comparative musicology and 

folk music research. In my article in The Oxford Handbook of Applied Ethnomusicology 

(2015), I pointed out that Applied Ethnomusicology can differ from country to 

country, from continent to continent. Where does Applied Ethnomusicology 

start? Again, I think the notion of “intervention” is central. The boundary between 

Ethnomusicology and Applied Ethnomusicology is conditioned by the researcher’s 

conscious decision that we decide to use his or her knowledge, understanding, and 

skills to make a difference. This is at least very clear to me. In the International 

Musicological Society and the American Musicological Society, there are no applied 

sections so far, while the notion of “applied music” refers to performance. Applied 

ethnomusicologists talk about people, often underprivileged ones, and use of music 

and ethnomusicological knowledge for the sake of improvements. 

Moreover, we do not favor top-down projects; The knowledge generated in our 

discipline results from our communication with the people in the field. I would like 

to address this as something which is not emphasized enough; while we do generally 

favor a bottom-up approach and close collaboration with our partners in the field, 

we realize that the communities we are dealing with are not necessarily harmonious. 

Different voices require negotiations, sometimes involving bottom-up, sometimes 

top-down solutions. We are keeping it in process. Should successful Applied 

Ethnomusicology projects be recognized by academia as something comparable 

to publications? I think so. I see a great future for Applied Ethnomusicology. We


should have more applied projects and more publications; projects that can make a 

difference in humans’ lives, change their circumstance for the better. 

Anthony Seeger: 

I will speak from the United States perspective. I specify this because I think we 

will find that different countries have different ideas about the definition of Applied 

Ethnomusicology. I am concerned about the lack of clarity in the word “applied”. 

We have the word in English, however, and I don’t think I can change its use in 

the term “applied ethnomusicology.” The Society for Ethnomusicology’s Applied 

Ethnomusicology Section recently refined its definition (see citation above). Yet 

problems remain with the use of the word. In the United States, the words “applied 

ethnomusicologist” are often used to refer to ethnomusicologists who work outside 

academic institutions. 

However, today many university teachers are also working on applied projects 

outside their universities. Some of my UCLA colleagues disagreed that applying 

ethnomusicology was confined to work outside the university. They said “We do 

applied ethnomusicology every day. We are applied ethnomusicologists when we 

prepare a course syllabus; we are applied ethnomusicologists when we give lectures.” 

So they did not want the term “Applied Ethnomusicology” to be used the narrower 

ICTM definition or the frequent use of the term for ethnomusicologists working 

outside academic life. Some of my colleagues preferred using the term “public 

ethnomusicology” or “public-facing ethnomusicology” for the activities listed 

by the Applied Ethnomusicology Section (Corona and Wiens 2021). In the US, 

social responsibility is not used as a criterion for applied ethnomusicology projects. 

Applied ethnomusicologists use their knowledge for many kinds of activities. 

In the US the definition of the field is broader than the ICTM’s definition (the 

definition cited above, accessed 13 July 2021). Applied ethnomusicologists in the 

US can work for a record company, as radio producers, or on music festivals. I do 

think that there should be more interaction between professionals who are working 

in public-facing jobs, doing things such as creating festivals, or engaging in socially 

responsible activist projects, and those who are teaching at universities. Applied 

ethnomusicology can improve ethnomusicological theory; and theory helps and 

improves applied projects. Applied ethnomusicology has an important place in the 

field of Ethnomusicology, and the field as a whole can have a role in improving the 

success of those working on applied projects. 

I think different countries, by virtue of their political histories and institutions, 

can have different engagements with applied ethnomusicology. In the United States, 

universities were seriously attacked by right wing politicians in the 1950s (and again 

in recent years). To protect themselves, universities became very conservative and 

many discouraged public engagement. That may be one reason that the founders of 

the Society for Ethnomusicology in the 1950s did not include an applied emphasis 

in their discussions of the word ethnomusicology. 

One of our African colleagues asked whether securing a grant to create a music 

drama and organizing university students to perform in public to teach people how


to avoid HIV is Applied Ethnomusicology. I think it is applied ethnomusicology 

in the sense of “applying” your understanding of the music and the importance 

of drama to create that activity. In some circumstances we are involved in applied 

musicology, theater, and Ethnomusicology. But when you present papers and 

write about what you are doing, then you become part of the discourse of 

Ethnomusicology. 

We reached several levels of discussion in this Symposium. I have been very 

impressed that people in this Study Group meeting are not just reporting what they 

did, but also reflecting seriously on the consequences, good or bad. The level selfcriticism 

has been really excellent. There is something very exciting about Applied 

Ethnomusicology. This is partly because we are all thinking so hard about important 

issues, not just what we are doing, but on ideas we have in our own minds and have 

learned from the people we are working with. 

Finally, I think it is important to remember that applied ethnomusicologists 

are people who take the training and understanding of music they learn through 

ethnomusicological study and research to work with individuals and communities 

to help them attain something they want to accomplish. But ethnomusicologists also 

take what they they learned back to institutions of which they are part, to transform 

universities, their countries, their lives, and the lives of others on this planet. 

Huib Schippers: 

While I have also worked in Asia, Australia and the US, I come from The Netherlands, 

a country with a strong basis in colonialism. Colonial thought was at the 

basis of how early ethnomusicologists thought and worked throughout Western 

Europe. The person who invented the word Ethnomusicology was my compatriot 

Jaap Kunst, who did a great deal of work to help people understand music from 

other cultures, particularly Javanese and Balinese Gamelan. But as his student Ki 

Mantle Hood told me, Kunst probably never touched Gamelan: He was part of the 

colonial system and would never sit down with the “natives” and play their music. 

So the person who many consider as a founder of our discipline—and an expert on 

Gamelan—never touched Gamelan. 

A good number of us from that side of the Atlantic, who are now called 

applied ethnomusicologists, including myself, have a background in working 

with communities outside of academia. I set up music schools, was involved 

in policy development, ran a record shop, organized festivals, and worked as a 

music critic (see also my Introduction to this volume). I did all of these things 

before I considered being an ethnomusicologist. As both Tony and Svanibor said, 

Applied Ethnomusicology existed long before we started the first discussions in 

Ethnomusicology like Sheehy’s and Titon’s 1992 articles, and long before 2003, when 

China started embracing the work on Intangible Cultural Heritage which we now 

consider a very important aspect of Applied Ethnomusicology. 

I think that much Ethnomusicology could be more “applied” in its nature. 

It follows logically from what we are as people and as scholars who care for 

communities we work with, and I am very pleased to see what we have started


to think about this deeply. There were a lot of discussions on ethical issues in this 

Symposium, which represent a shift from seeing the people we work with from 

subject to informant, from collaborator to co-researcher, and now many of us work 

towards social justice and inclusion: we’ve moved from people working for us to 

working with people or working for people. Applied Ethnomusicology implies that 

we are giving our work back to communities in a meaningful way. 

It is really interesting to see that we are getting into the discussion on how 

this fits in the institutions we work for. There was a question about hierarchies of 

knowledge at funding organizations, who favor applicants whose research projects 

lead to “new knowledge.” It is true that we still have a long way to go in many 

countries towards equivalence of applied research. However, if you look at the 

entire funding landscape, it is usually easier to find money support for applied 

projects because they can demonstrate impact. Many governments now also have 

“impact” on their agenda for research, which is what we tend to deliver on. And 

it’s our responsibility to talk to the institutions about what is happening in society. 

Institutions and governments have the responsibility to react to change, and to create 

frameworks to accommodate new realities. Applied ethnomusicologists can assist in 

those efforts. 

Hui Yu: 

If I want to answer the question “What is Applied Ethnomusicology?” I probably 

would say it is an academic branch based on our ethnomusicological knowledge to 

make visible improvements in our society through either theoretical investigation 

or practical social activities. As many Chinese scholars have already been confused 

with the imported term of Ethnomusicology, the relatively new concept of Applied 

Ethnomusicology would undoubtedly bring many debates and discussions. Before 

ethnomusicology was introduced to China, traditional Chinese music research 

was called minzu yinyue lilun, or “theory of national music” in many high learning 

institutions, which was also the name of an undergraduate major at Shanghai 

Conservatory. When ethnomusicology became popular, some music scholars 

considered their endeavor part of ethnomusicological research. Others believe the 

purpose of their work is to establish a Chinese music theory system parallel to the 

Western one, based on the unique features found from the traditional music by the 

musicologists. Most of the second category scholars are more or less motivated by 

the nationalist ideology incepted from the early 20th century in China. Many music 

scholars of traditional music research in China are uncertain among themselves who 

are ethnomusicologists and who are not. The scope of ethnomusicology is still an 

issue of debate that has not been resolved. Now we have Applied Ethnomusicology, 

and the concept is even more challenging to comprehend. 

First of all, we need to interpret the concept of “applied.” Is it relevant 

to expand our knowledge of certain music and musical culture? I believe any 

knowledge is valuable and can be applied to human life one way or the other. The 

only difference is that some branches of knowledge can have a lasting impact on 

society, and some may impact society very quickly but without lasting effects. If I


remember correctly, Tony Seeger once said that all aspects of ethnomusicology in 

Brazil could be referred to as Applied Ethnomusicology. The same is true in China. 

I think there are two types of ethnomusicologists working the applied field in 

China: those working in schools and teaching student to promote the society, and 

those so-called “cultural workers.” There are social workers in the United States 

and cultural workers in China. These people are paid directly or indirectly by the 

government and work in cultural units. They do not write articles or publish books. 

Still, they have to be involved in various social activities, either as organizers or 

participants, especially in recent years when the government has taken a very active 

role in protecting and promoting music traditions proclaimed as Intangible Cultural 

Heritages in China. Thousands of people around the country are nowadays working 

for the so-called “culture activities” and are paid by the government as those 

activities are considered ideological matters. Many of them work at the grassroots 

levels, such as the communities in townships and villages. According to Seeger, these 

people outside of academia, in the ambit of Applied Ethnomusicology. 

In China, “application” is always problematic, as there is a tradition that politics 

always governed “social applications”. In 1942, there was a speech at the Forum 

on Literature and Art in Yan’an by the Communist Party Chairman Mao Zedong. 

He advocated that arts should serve the political ends. The Central Conservatory 

of Music in Bejing established the Department of Musicology in 1950. Later on, 

the Shanghai Conservatory of Music created a major in traditional music theory, 

training undergraduate students to study traditional music in order to provide ideas 

for music compositions in Chinese style. It established a systematic curriculum for 

the training, and I became the first graduate student admitted into this major. So the 

question is, when our theory serves music composition, does it makes the research 

“applied?” At least, that is what many people in Chinese music conservatories 

believe, and it probably is the reason why ethnomusicology is still not considered 

very "useful" in some performing arts schools in the West. 

China is a multi-ethnic country with 55 ethnic minorities living inside 

its territory. Every conservatory has a folk music department these days. 

However, the music taught in these departments is mainly Han music tradition. 

Ethnomusicologists should make the Ministry of Education and other Government 

departments aware of the importance of multi-cultural music education. While I 

understand that most research units in the United States are independent, music 

scholars in China have to apply for research grants funded by Government agencies 

only. All of these facts show the nature of Applied Ethnomusicology in China is 

different from the West, which means it is hard for scholars to work independently, 

and we need to work with government to make change in society. Several incidents 

occurred in the past when scholars and composers tried to transmit the preservation 

of minority music in Yunnan Province independently but failed regretfully, but the 

story is too long to include in this presentation. 

Almost all ethnomusicologists in China work in the public sector, primarily 

in higher education. If we claim that our field is “applied,” we need to prove 

our applicability beyond education. My school is a comprehensive university.


It puts heavy emphasis on STEM fields of science, technology, engineering and 

mathematics. The humanistic research in most cases do not sound very “applied” 

to the leadership of the government. Nevertheless, if the outcome of our academic 

research, either by individual research or by government think tank can influence 

the policymakers and impact government cultural policies concerning musical 

traditions, it will make a very meaningful contribution to society, and the search is 

absolutely “applied.” 

Xiao Mei: 

I can only talk about this issue from my experience in China. Just now Hui Yu 

has described the situation in China as very similar to that of Brazil. All facets of 

Ethnomusicology in China can be called Applied Ethnomusicology. This issue is 

also what I have been trying to work out in recent years, which is the relationship 

between Applied Ethnomusicology and responsible Ethnomusicology. I am 

completely confined to the academic world, having little interaction with colleagues 

of other cultural fields. In this respect, I totally agree with what Prof. Yu Hui just 

said. Our work has always been “applied”. 

I was particularly impressed in 1992 when I was a young teacher at the China 

Conservatory of Music and organized an annual traditional music conference. Then, 

an overseas professor asked why Chinese scholars always had a paragraph at the end 

of their articles, declaring that our music research should contribute to socialist 

construction. Following the footsteps of our predecessors, our research is to establish 

a Chinese music system, which is a very important application. In 1980, when the 

concept of “Ethnomusicology” sneaked into China, people began to debate on the 

differences between Ethnomusicology and traditional Chinese music research. When 

we accept Ethnomusicology, we emphasize restoring music to its original cultural 

background and to understand and transmit it. Then, the Chinese music culture 

system we originally wanted to establish should be based on China’s own cultural 

diversity. The question is that when we strive to build a national cultural system, do 

we ignore the demands of the people? 

With this in mind, our research is actually similar to music research in Eastern 

Europe. When there is such a reflection, we have been conducting music research 

in culture for a long time, shifting from constructing a large cultural system to case 

studies. In this process, we cannot avoid the local people’s demands for their own 

culture. This is a problem that every scholar faces: field work cannot be avoided. 

From this perspective, I will elucidate the driving force behind “application”. Is 

our research aimed at satisfying an external demand? As Seeger said, American 

universities do not talk about applications, but some institutions outside 

universities—such as tourist operators or cultural development institutions—have 

all kinds of targets, and researchers would like to get involved with them. Such a 

wish can also be a research drive. 

We often realize that applications are actually affected by other institutions, but 

responsible research is different. What do scholars think about certain community 

needs? What is the ultimate goal of the scholar himself in his/her research? In other


words, we are involved in the community we work for, and we cannot be completely 

detached from it. For instance, the Inner Mongolia Academy of Art is undertaking 

a project on Mongolian epic restoration. During the process, a large amount of 

research data related to epics has been generated. This kind of intervention is a kind 

of responsibility, and I think theory and application need not be contradictory. 

Scholars need to make a balance between the interests of the research and those of 

the community, so that they can breathe with them, share their fate and ideas. This 

involvement is a very complicated process, but this is our responsibility. It may be 

right or wrong: let history judge it. 

I am afraid I may not be able to give a definition of Applied Ethnomusicology. 

However, what I would like to say is: let us just do it! 

Where is Applied Ethnomusicology Heading? 

Through the above discussions, we can find much common ground in views on 

the nature of Applied Ethnomusicology among the five keynote speakers: that 

is, the knowledge generated by academics is used in societies to change social and 

cultural realities, often with the aim to improve the general state of communities 

and societies. Social responsibility is a key concept promulgated by all five speakers, 

as well as most of the delegates who presented at the Symposium. Of course, there 

are also differences in focus among the speakers. For example, in the United States, 

as presented by Anthony Seeger, universities place more emphasis on academic 

research, and applied issues are generally handled by practitioners working for 

institutions from outside. Yet, during his career, he himself moved in and out of 

academia several times. 

In this regard, we can say that Ethnomusicologists and Applied Ethnomusicologists 

belong to two different but partially overlapping groups. Pettan argues 

solidly for application of ethnomusicological knowledge in practice, and for 

Ethnomusicologists to make the knowledge more embodied in the real world in form 

of “interventions.” The social problems these can address include major issues such as 

refugees, immigrants, social conflicts, etc. Seeger states that Ethnomusicologists who 

work at universities may not want their knowledge to be misused in application, 

resulting in possible harms to society. Speaking from personal experience, Huib 

Schippers argues that one can be an Ethnomusicologist who also acts as a driver 

for social change and equity, in his case by managing record companies, organizing 

festivals, setting up education, or making practical contributions to approaching 

intangible cultural heritage. For him, theoretical research and applied concrete work 

are both sides of a coin held by ethnomusicologists, but negotiating these different 

modes does require flexibility and continuous soul-searching. 

For the two Chinese scholars, Hui Yu and Xiao Mei, the gap between 

Ethnomusicology and Applied Ethnomusicology is narrow, since in China the 

knowledge of Ethnomusicology has always been used to improve the lives of 

people through disseminating what Chinese traditional music culture means to 

them. As Xiao Mei said, we need to have “responsible ethnomusicology”. We do 

research on traditional music not only for the sake of our own interests, but for the


benefit of the people who own the music. However, both scholars emphasized that 

Ethnomusicologists can use their knowledge to influence cultural policy making, 

promote multi-cultural music education and enhance Intangible Cultural Heritage 

protection. 

After the round table discussion, while there is common ground among the 

scholars, some issues are not resolved. For example, the question raised by Hui Yu is 

the division of application boundaries. What is an “application”? Hui Yu asked, “Can 

useless knowledge exist”? Ethnomusicologists create knowledge, and knowledge 

can be used to change society. When it changes people’s cognition, and is used by 

composers in their creative works, it is also a manifestation of “application”. For 

example, if Intangible Cultural Heritage protection can be considered as a kind of 

applied work, it does not mean Chinese Ethnomusicologists have a major role to 

play in the concrete work in that realm. Instead, they use their knowledge through 

research to inform and influence the people working for Government agencies, 

and to disseminate their research results to the mass of the people in order to raise 

the level of consciousness of the ordinary people on heritage. Now “protection of 

intangible cultural heritage” has become a widely understood good practice in China. 

This kind of work to change social cognition has a high application value, yet for the 

Ethnomusicologist its approach is through academic research. In this regard we can 

say that academic research theories may not be “approaches” that can be used directly 

in concrete works, but instead, to lift people’s minds and create high cognition levels 

that will offer a great help to the people working in the concrete works. 

Another question is the focus of scholarship: what about those who are 

joining the Applied Ethnomusicology Conference? How can we make a distinction 

between those who are involved in Ethnomusicology and those involved in Applied 

Ethnomusicology? The definition of Applied Ethnomusicology on the webpage 

of SEM after 2011 (see above) is the revision of the previous version disseminated 

before 2010, which was: “The Applied Ethnomusicology Section is devoted to work 

in ethnomusicology that falls outside of typical academic contexts and purposed” 

(Harrison 2012: 511). Hence, one can argue that academic activities of the members 

in Applied Ethnomusicology Section of SEM are under the realms of Applied 

Ethnomusicology. Actually, depending on where we are based, not everyone has a 

chance to work outside one’s ambit. For example, a university professor may like 

to be engaged in applied work—such as music festival or museum exhibition— 

but such opportunities may simply not arise. It may be easier for them to perform 

“second-rate research”, a concept put forward by Pettan at the round table to refer to 

research on “applied” topics, the result of which are published, but it may be hard for 

researchers to venture into practical domains. Is this “Applied Ethnomusicology?” 

or “Ethnomusicology” under Seeger’s classification? The ICTM Study Group on 

Applied Ethnomusicology has tried to focus on presentations that focus on research 

where the applied component is evident in the aims and the methodology of the 

research itself, not merely in its topic: so a paper about protest songs would not 

necessarily qualify as applied, while a project generating and disseminating them 

definitely would.


Related to the realities in China, we can find few “members of Applied Ethnomusicology”, 

as mentioned in SEM website, who are involved in Ethnomusicology 

events. On the other hand, many Ethnomusicologists are teaching Chinese 

traditional music at their institutions, and preparing to include music genres into 

the university curriculum under the notion of Intangible Cultural Heritage. This 

has become a popular issue widely discussed during Ethnomusicology conferences. 

However, those who teach at universities and those who do concrete works hardly 

ever meet each other in the same event, which means they do different jobs. 

Partly for that reason, the identity of “Applied Ethnomusicologists” has not been 

established, hence nobody identifies as Applied Ethnomusicologist. It seems that 

if there were someone who would identify as Applied Ethnomusicologist, he/she 

may not be a member of the group doing concrete work. This is complicated by 

the fact that those who discuss Applied Ethnomusicology, at present, are mainly 

Ethnomusicologists. 

A Personal View 

From my perspective, it is apparent that Applied Ethnomusicology is interpreted 

differently by Western and Chinese scholars, or even among Chinese scholars, 

notwithstanding the fact that there is a great deal of common ground. For instance, I 

totally agree with the idea that Applied Ethnomusicology extends academic research 

to a wider field of society to solve specific problems, with “intervention” as the 

key word as suggested by Pettan. I have been personally involved in many concrete 

“interventions” (e.g. Zhang 2015). I also agree with how Antony Seeger has 

introduced the distinction between Ethnomusicology and Applied Ethnomusicology 

in the United States, which can also be a reality in China. There is also endorsement 

of what Huib Schippers has explained on various aspects of the music industry and 

research. I also share the same passion for “responsible ethnomusicology” my two 

Chinese colleagues have emphasized. There is, however, a problem in making the 

differences between the “intervention” and “applied research”, as the presentations 

in the Symposium of the ICTM Study Group on Applied Ethnomusicology and the 

articles published in The Oxford Handbook of Applied Ethnomusicology (2015), and the 

organizations of the Symposium and the publication. Inspired by Klisala Harrison’s 

discussion on different directions of Applied Ethnomusicology research (2012), 

in my opinion that the problem lies not only on what is applied and what is not, 

but also on the difference between researches on Ethnomusicology and Applied 

Ethnomusicology. Since these are scholarly activities, I might be trying to divide 

Applied Ethnomusicology into two branches: “doing of ” (or, applied works) and 

“reviewing of ” (or, applied research) concrete works. 

No doubt, we all endeavor to deliver our social responsibilities through our 

research. If Applied Ethnomusicology refers to the practical portion, the main issue 

is the difficulty in defining “concrete work”. Some American scholars consider that 

designing a teaching syllabus is concrete work, and it is “applied”. We can see from 

this example that it is difficult to mark clear boundaries between Ethnomusicology 

and Applied Ethnomusicology in research. Pettan listed four kinds of concrete

Leseprobe_Applied Ethnomusicology

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